January 2008

12 Steps to Making Your Sales Recruits STARs

Who isn’t looking for a magic formula for hiring salespeople who both can and WILL sell—especially when the talent pool is shrinking?

Start 2008 with a time-tested way to save time and money while attracting and selecting superior sales talent. The 12-step STAR (Sales Talent Acquisition Routine) helps identify, find, attract, interview, and retain top sales talent that meet and exceed your revenue and margin goals. 92% of the candidates hired using STAR—a 95% statistically valid technique—rose to perform in the top half of their sales organization.

	Bob Kinsella of Tri-Cities says about STAR:
	Danita led us through what I believe is the most thorough, yet time-efficient hiring process, starting with how to write the recruiting ad. I would never have thought to write the ad the way it ended up. And I certainly wouldn’t have received 80 responses that we scored using her guidelines. The results of the online assessment helped us narrow the field down. Then I conducted and scored phone interviews, once again using her guidelines, followed by in-person interviews. Danita joined me in interviewing the four strongest candidates. I was astounded that almost all of our candidates at one time or another during the process actually praised our process for how thorough it was. And now we have an outstanding director of sales.

Step 1: Determine why sales people must be different and why they have struggled in your business. Sales people must have the confidence to address competitive issues and deal with rejection. Identify challenges in your infrastructure such as turnover, lack of accountability, inability to anticipate start-up challenges, and inability to set expectations.

Step 2: Determine what a successful salesperson looks like in your environment. There are 19 different factors to customize for success in your business, such as number of active competitors, pricing strategy, length of sales cycle. You must determine the standards for all criteria and compare them to candidates’ assessment results.

Step 3: Find and attract salespeople to succeed in your business. Improve the quality of candidates who respond to ads and postings by creating ads that attract those who are more aligned with your requirements.

For STAR (Sales Talent Acquisition Routine) Steps 4-12, call 612-267-3320, or email Danita@SalesGrowthSpecialists.com. I’ll be happy to send you the information and answer your questions. Wishing you successful top and bottom lines in ’08!

12 Steps to Making Your Sales Recruits STARs

Discipline Creativity Results

Danita